From Island Packets to Island Princess

Island Packets are strong, exceptionally well-built, and covered up in exterior teak brightwork.  They are also very beamy and expensive.  I found several that I could, ultimately, afford.  All of them were at considerable distance from Key West.
We had noticed a sale flyer for a 2004 Hunter 36 in the marina laundry and finally asked the harbormaster where the boat was located.
Tied up nose-in to the seawall is "Island Princess".  Micky and I have seen that boat for sale, then withdrawn for the last four years.  The owner, Mark Tobin, reportedly went through a bout of cancer, recovered and now wanted to sell her again.
Mark came out and opened the boat up for our walk-through.  That night I called him and made an offer.

We'll sea trial the boat Sunday.  Needless to say we're both very excited!

Transformations

I know that some folks think Micky and I have lost our minds.  We've just reached the point that "Tango" is ready to cruise and we've announced that we're buying another boat.
When we started this restoration project the plan was to keep this boat in Key West and take her to the Tortugas and Bahamas.  The more we invested and worked on this boat, the more obvious her shortcomings, and ours became.  We needed to do more to ensure our comfort onboard than we were willing to invest, while we were also very reluctant to give our "sweat equity" away.
For instance, boarding the dinghy across the stern of "Tango" involves climbing down the round rungs of the swim ladder.  Not a big deal at the dock, but hazardous with any kind of wave action.
Handling the anchor and chain, was going to require that I install a windlass with another round of structural and electrical modifications.
Finally a rigging inspection revealed major corrosion damage to the rig.  Coupled with a 30 year-old fuller that was never installed properly, and the task became overwhelming.
A further complication is that Micky was very unhappy with the sleeping arrangements on the boat.  The Vee-berth is too cumbersome and high, the aft berth too stuffy, so we had to make the dinette into a bunk every night.
These are not big problems on a lake boat that used on weekends, but not so good on a coastal cruiser.
Our solution is to get the largest, competent cruiser that the local rules will allow into our slip at Boca Chica.  Several boats fit that bill, one is a Hunter 36 from 2003 onward.  The Vee-berth is great for guests Micky likes the dinette, and the aft stateroom has a queen bed running athwartship.
So we are changing boats, but not giving up "Tango".
Here are some of the changes we've accomplished.

From a taped-up, cracked and leaking neglected boat to---

This ship-shape well-maintained topsides.

The interior was well-used.

Not the stylish, comfy space we have created.

The thing I had the most impact on was the engine which went from a rusted, overheating, unreliable lump of iron.

To a very clean and shiny piece of clockwork.

Island Packets

One of the advantages of being on "A" Dock is that we get to meet most of the transient sailors that come through.  Our slip is just across from the most-commonly used "just visiting" slips, so we get to see some really nice boats and folks.
A gorgeous Island Packet 420 is waiting for a weather window to the Bahamas in the slip across from us.  We met Maris and Linda Eshleman shortly after they arrived and offered to take them shopping at the commissary.  In turn they invited us sailing with them.
Their 2003 IP 420 is a freshwater Wisconsin boat just out of refit.  This was our first sail on a cutter-rigged, full-keel boat.  A typically low-aspect rig with all sails on furlers, including in-mast main, sail handling was a snap.
"Amekaya"  has a bow-thruster of about 6 horsepower, but a good 15-knot wind still blew her sideways coming out of the slip.  No criticism intended, but I probably would have used that thruster more and tried to position the bow into the wind before attempting to power out with a tad more prop aft.  Since the prop would have "walked" to port and pushed forward we may have been a little more orderly coming out.  Isn't hindsight wonderful!  Very glad I was not at the helm having to figure it all out on the fly!
Once out in the fairway, the boat handled very well and tracked tightly.  After we cleaned up the dock lines and flipped the fenders aboard, Maris tensioned all three halyards at the mast and then pulled the main out of the mast.  Next came the 110% LP jib and the Gary Hoyt-rigged staysail when we cleared the #1 buoy.  Sheeting the jib was very easy with two free-spinning Lewmar 58's, while the staysail was self-tending once the sheet was set.
We cruised down past Key West with 7-8 knots of way and pouted when she dropped below 6 knots.  Once established on a tack, steering was remote-control via the Garmin autopilot.
We came about next to the Disney cruise liner at Mallory Square and began the always-frustrating beat to windward.  During our three longish tacks we noticed a large number of iridescent blown-glass blue Portuguese-Man-of-War jellyfish.  As pretty as they are, the stinging nematocysts in their beard of tentacles make them a formidable deterrent to a casual swim.  We were also visited by a solitary gray porpoise, but there was no playful surfing in our bow wave.  Apparently this fellow had an appointment!
Soon the sails were furled and we motored up the long fairway back into Boca Chica and a very orderly tie-up.
Now the problem is that I want an Island Packet!  Since I'm limited to 12-foot beam, that means an IP35 or less.  Let's check the listings...

The Economic Philosophy of Buying Older Boats.

The first axiom of Buying Older Boats is forget the word "Economic"!  Unless you stumble on a true "estate sale" , one where a well-heeled boat fanatic died the day after completing the last possible upgrade on the boat that nobody else in the family cared anything about,  what you usually find with "Senior Sailboats"  is deferred maintenance.  Things that just were not taken care of.  "Round Tuits" are the true enemy  of boats, especially saltwater boats.

Corrosion, rust and corruption never take a day off.  The same hot tropical sun that makes this such a paradise literally bakes and fries the life out of every painted, varnished and sealed thing on a boat.  hatches leak, seals dry up and crack.  Impermeable stainless steel somehow turns brown.  Can't be rust!  That stuff is stainless!

Go in any coastal marina and within two minutes you will run out of fingers to tally the corroded bronze, steel, or aluminum fittings you'll find.  If there's wood outside, every scratch is an invitation for the varnish to peel like a cruise ship passenger.

Fixing all that is a constant monetary "death of a thousand cuts".  

Thirty year-old mechanical anythings are just that.  Old and used.

The only way to justify buying an "Elderly Sea-Bird"  is to compare it with the nightmare of buying a "New Sea-Bird"!   You see the new production boat was literally hand-assembled by immigrants in a sweltering metal building full of noise!  Talk to a new boat owner and bring up the term "punch list".

You will hear a litany of mis-wired, never worked, jammed and over-looked thingies that took multiple visits by repair folks to fix.  Some owners even seem happy when discussing the progress of their legal quest as manufacturers and brokers point fingers at each other.

The only route to the Nirvana of Boat Ownership is persistence.  Fix what makes you unhappy.  If doing that makes you unhappy, either learn the Zen of Acceptance or take your game to a different ball field.

But if you see the light at the end of that tunnel.  If you can see that the boat is slowly changing from albatross to sea-eagle piece by piece, and that progress itself is making you happy, then your philosophical quest is over.

Rig Inspection- Check! Rig Fails- Check!

Today Curt and Steve from Keys Rigging came down from Marathon to discuss the furling issues and install a halyard restrainer to stop the jib halyard from wrapping around the headstay.  As soon as Curt took a look at the 29-year old rigging on "Tango"  the program changed to a rig inspection, then repair, then furling issues.
I thoroughly agreed that before climbing the mast an inspection was in order.  They rigged a three-part over-sized climbing rig with a bosun's chair and started at deck level.  Mostly unremarkable and easily repairable stuff.  Then Curt got to the lower spreaders and started calling out cracked eyes and broken wire strands.  At the upper spreaders, more failures and he announced that he wasn't going to the masthead and that repairs would require the mast to come down.
I'm not allowed to do that in the Boca Chica Marina and they recommended bringing the boat to Marathon for the work.  Just don't sail it to Marathon, and wait for a calm day!  Before they left they braced the mast with the main and jib halyards.  Measurement were taken, pages from the owner's manual were photographed on Curt's iPhone, and an estimate will appear via email.
As expected, this is their busy season.  I probably won't get the work done until mid-May or June.
This really cuts into the sailing plans for this spring!
The rough estimate is that this repair-by-replacement will cost around $10K by the time it is done.  When finished the standing rigging, internal wiring, masthead lights and antenna will all be new.  Additionally, the furler will be pitched in favor of a new Harken ESP and I'll install a wind speed and direction system.
The rest of March and April will be spent converting the rust on the engine and mounts to clean painted metal and installing new fuel filters and lift pumps.
And Micky and I are going to go on "Vacation from Retirement"!   We're going to find some neat place to go and just enjoy ourselves.

Finally, overheating is my bitch!

I admit that this problem went on way too long.  I'll also admit to missing a vital step in troubleshooting and not seeing what was right in front of me.  The important thing is that I only spent $1,000 and not $12,000+!
To recap, this engine has overheated repeatedly ever since we bought the boat.  Usually at the most inopportune time possible.  It is really nerve-wracking to hear the overheat alarm squealing as you transit the mile-long, very narrow, channel into Boca Chica.  They blasted and dug the channel out of solid coral limestone to enable fuel and ammo barges  to get to the Naval Air Station back in the 1960's.  The tidal currents are rapid and there is barely room to pass two large yachts.  Lose the engine and you may lose the boat!
Micky has not been feeling well, so I have been trying to troubleshoot alone.  The result is that I could not be both on deck running the controls while carefully watching the engine below decks.  My shortcut was to just flip up the top engine cover and check temperatures with the IR thermometer.  I put a new impeller in the raw water pump soon after getting "Tango" and did not start my troubleshooting there.
That was a major mistake.  Even though the mixing elbow was original to the boat and was indeed clogged and corroded, it was not the major problem. Today with Micky doing the button and lever thing on deck, I was below and saw the problem. The raw water pump was not rotating.  It was seized solid on its shaft.  The drive belt was nearly worn through from trying to turn the stationary pump pulley.
Mark DeJong is one of those free-spirited, hard-working, indispensable men that seem to gravitate to the Keys.  His schedule is loose, but his logic is tight.  He has an open-air, semi-shipping container, Butler building maybe sort of a shop at Robbie's haulout yard on Stock Island.  His girlfriend, Meghan runs the place and keeps Mark on point.  Stuffed somewhere in there among the artistically painted paddles and rusting cannon are parts for just about anything that Yanmar or Kubota ever made.  I need to take a picture of the "Muffler Man"  Mark built.  Welded together out of crankshafts and ring gears, leering insanely is a life-size Gatling-gun hip shooter complete with a draped belt of 7.62mm linked ammo.
The pump Mark had was not technically the right one by part number, but it would do the trick.
Now the engine bangs happily away at 160 degrees and is much quieter.  I also spent 40 minutes freeing up the rusted stuck idle adjustment and restored the unit to 850 RPM idle.
All in all a very happy day.  Monday the rigger will come and help fix the furling jib by installing a halyard restrainer at the masthead.  We will also install a strap at the bottom to stabilize the drum and stop the whole thing from riding up the headstay.

More boat troubles, different location!

Settled into the rhythm of life in the RV park and started putting "Tango" back together.  Engine cranked right up and ran well until it overheated!  I spent a large part of the time last year working on the water intake, pump, and heat exchanger.  The engine ran hotter than "Jazz", but the alarm stayed off except when pushed very hard.
One irritating thing it did was to blow smoke up through the scuppers on start up and at random times.  I thought it was just the location and trim of the boat.  It also seemed to crank harder.  I expected the engine to spin faster with the good batteries and charging system.  The Newmar charge I got from Jon Siewers last year is dead.  The solar and wind can't keep up without the engine.
After consulting the font of all knowledge, the Internet, I decided to attack the mixing elbow.
The wet exhaust system on most sailboats injects cooling seawater from the output of the heat exchanger directly into the hot exhaust gas stream just behind the engine.  This not only cools the exhaust, but also muffles the noise.  It also allows the use of rubber hoses and even plastic mufflers!
As you can imagine, the mixture of salt water, diesel exhaust gases, soot, and heat make the mixing point suffer from corrosion and the collection of hard, salty, calcium deposits in the elbow.  Yanmar says the elbow is a 500-hour maintenance replacement item.
Apparently, nobody had ever touched this one.  I busted knuckles, cussed, and bruised ribs from leaning over the engine.  Tried to take the melted, wire-wrapped rubber hose off the elbow.  Even after cutting the wires back for over an inch, the hose wouldn't budge!  I decided to stop for the evening and come back the next day to force the elbow with the hose attached backwards past the transmission and hacksaw the hose off.
Fortunately, the next morning a look behind the engine made the obvious choice loosening the hose at the water muffler then pulling the entire mess out of the front over the top.
$450 and a day later, the new exhaust and hose are in hand and ready to install!